During my initial PhD research session at Tate Modern we rolled a yellow ribbon down the Turbine Hall- it made a temporary demarcation - a yellow line, a territorial claim, sliding across the surface of the institution that we were endeavouring to inhabit differently. At the Fitzwilliam I wanted to repeat this action, the ribbon again laying down a marker. It felt as though I had placed a flag into the soil of the building for a moment of ownership. The action whilst delicate in material feels powerful. In response to the action at Tate I had written the following:

'As the yellow satin line unfurled, more and more space seemed to be claimed by it. Lloyd’s action with the satin had appeared to split the space in two, as would a pencil being drawn down the length of a piece of paper. This simple act altered my attention to the materiality of the floor, and I noticed the scar of Doris Salcedo’s artwork ‘Shibboleth’ (2007) 38 zig-zagging its way down the space. Salcedo’s artwork had originally provided a crack through the concrete of the Turbine Hall, an action that had directly impacted the architecture of the space, the rupture questioning, extending, or breaking borders and altering it beyond the exhibited time of the work. The filled in crack was still present and a memory of the rupture Shibboleth had caused. The yellow ribbon followed alongside and was now set in dialogue with the trace of ‘Shibboleth’, a fault-line in the concrete. If Salcedo’s artwork had been a deliberate rupturing of the institutional space, what did the new and temporary yellow line afford?' 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/doris-salcedo-2695/doris-salcedo-shibboleth
It was interesting to see that Salcedo’s work had directly cut into the institutional space of Tate and responded to territorial issues of power. In the text associated with the artwork Tate questions; ‘What might it mean to refer to such violence in a museum of modern art?’
At the Fitzwilliam, the multiple rolling felt as though I was gathering up the spaces - claiming one after another perhaps providing a new route or a new anchor between the exhibits and artefacts, a unifying delineation a pull. Garoian uses the word suture’ (2013, p.90) as a way of understanding the alternative connections that can emerge through a prosthetic pedagogy. Touching and intangible touching as well as other differing knowledges are sutured or stitched together within the art museum. Did the yellow ribbon, its line draw through, thread and suture the spaces and introduce a new gathering?

​

There are times in the museum/art museum when you become aware of where you need to put your body, and where your body is in relation to others, be they people, images, objects, architecture, signage ........ I started to feel the intensity of what surrounded me and at these times it is easy to become more passive and to stop looking or engaging with attention and curiosity. The spaces can pass by, you can drift, ideas not permeating deeply but rather grazing the surface of you or your thinking. Rather than the lens of the 'pedagogical art object' I started to blank areas out, really simply with a felt disc. It was like a moment of saying 'shhhhh' to the surrounding of opulence, significance, history, meaning. In that moment of observation I wanted to blur my focus slightly or create a different focus. A temporary breath. Even the shadows recast themselves onto the disc- and I enjoyed the stubbornness of it.
I have started to see the gaps be it physical or conceptual between the things I am asked to view-it is these in-between spaces that hold significance for me - they are a space to fill with subjectivity, with speculation and provocation. 

I have started the week with many interesting conversations - practice- research- material knowledges- object connections- collection connections- fabric etching- conservation- suspended objects - material hierarchies. I have been making images by questioning what I am encountering in the galleries - what should I see - what do I see- what catches me out and changes my focus. The multiple screens - glass and lens - reflectors and protectors provide visual complexity. a virtual material presence and absence. In my Phd thesis I found Brian Massumi critical in this questioning of what our encounters can be....

In Massumi’s writings on the encounters with exhibited artworks, he suggests that the viewer perceives work, textures, shapes, and material through a form of ‘kinaesthesia’, a sensory act that ‘can relay into touch’ (Massumi, 2013). This relay forms a circuit or transmission between the potential of what the body perceives and the potential for an engagement that is more physical and embodied. What is significant to performativity is that Massumi positions potentiality at the core of the encounter and argues that the virtual exchange and the lack of physical relations keeps the artwork/thing full of virtual possibilities, and the ‘potential our body holds to walk around, take another look, extend a hand and touch’ (2013).  Massumi is not referring to the physicality of touch but rather its perceived potential and, whilst there may be the opportunity to ‘take another look’, there is a likelihood that any proximity would be discouraged in the art museum unless the work is directly framed for interaction.
It is arguably important that the visible and invisible boundaries around particular exhibits are understood as relevant and appropriate, allowing artworks to survive beyond the limitations of their durability.[1] Whilst this protection of valuable artworks is understood, it is interesting to consider Massumi’s ideas of a virtual relationship with the materials. He questions what kind of relationships with artworks are prevented by these material limitations, an experience where, ‘the relays of touch and kinaesthesia will not take place’ (2013, p.44). A space where the materiality is encountered through a non-material relationship. Massumi argues that the potentials that are present within the artwork can only be accessed or ‘appear’ visually. These potentials are the habitual and traditional ways of participating with forms of artwork where viewers are removed from inhabiting the same space as the material, behind an imagined line, or physical boundary. The material encounter that Massumi suggests is held almost entirely by the visual potentiality of the work and, as a consequence, Vervoet’s ‘visible staging’ of pedagogy (2001), remains distanced.

As museum visitors, we do not witness the prospective touch as it happens; rather, we  
witness a collection of evidence that suggests prospective touch happened.
​(Dargaj, 2011,   p.30)

[1] This is with the understanding that some artworks can be interacted with, but this comment is connected to conventional ways of looking.